As Cyrano, Peter Dinklage provides a memorable performance in the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film, along with his soldiers! Together, they leave viewers with plenty to reflect upon and with soldiers taking centre-stage in the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine, can we begin a conversation about soldiers?

Soldiers are people, not emotionless machines! Can we look at them more closely, beyond their supreme duty of kill or be killed when the moment comes? Can we briefly turn our eyes away from the ‘hustle’ and consider the soldiers on both sides? Those soldiers acting out the orders of their superiors? Of course, what is a soldier without orders? Or what is the military itself without orders? Yet as the story of Cyrano goes, sometimes these orders are released by commanding officers to suit their wishes and inclinations. They may twist or bend these orders to align with certain predetermined expectations, including the fact that they may see such as a moment to throw some soldiers they consider as ‘expendable’ to their death